The State of the Union of The Greeting Cards Aisle.

I have failed you, Dear Readers, in regards to my duty to monitor the content of the greeting cards section of your local Wal-green. Frankly there are some disturbing trends in greeting cards surfacing now. Maybe if I’d alerted you to them earlier, wee might’ve been able to mobilize some sort of organized response. As it stands, all we can do now is mark the trouble areas and remain vigilant and pray for change.

This is what I’ve observed in a recent visit to the local Wal-Greens Greeting Card Aisle…

President Bush: Greeting Card Whipping Boy.



I counted nearly 6 different birthday cards that trashed the current president.(And one that featured Dick Cheney on the cover, about to shoot you in the face with his cartoonishly big double barrel shotgun. “Hope your birthday is A BLAST!” Yeesh!) On one card, Bush is giving a speech and the names of oil companies are scattered throughout the text of the speech. On another one, Dick Cheney says, “Hey, have you heard that we’re finally getting support in Iraq? I just heard that we’re getting 100 Brazillion troops this year!” Bush says, “That’s great.” Open the card and then he says, “How many is in a Brazillian?" Another one had a GREAT BIG picture of his face and when you opened it, it said, “And you thought that a birthday is the only thing that you had to worry about, today!” Yuk yuk yuk!

The Republican response is pretty pathetic. One card had a picture of George and Laura, and said, “Happy Birthday wishes to a close personal friend from George and Laura!” Inside it said, “Thought this would look good on your desk.” (Although, as I think about it now, that might be a mean thing to send a diehard Dem, if you wanted to grieve them a little bit. Hmm, Passive Aggressive greetings cards. That’s a new concept to me.) There was also a card about Hillary Clinton being the most powerful woman in the free world, but really, c’mon, we all know that’s really Oprah. So, pretty sloppy responses from the Repubs in the greeting cards aisle. Let's get it together, fellas.

My friend Jeff assures me that there’s a HUGE market for Anti-Bush paraphernalia. He says that you walk into any calendar shop and there’s a whole slew of “365 Bushisms in a year!” and “Bush’s Biggest Boners: A Monthly Calendar!” featuring his biggest screw-ups. And I guess we can take it from the greeting card aisle litmus test. If a notion has trickled down into the culture so far that the tired, humorless old biddies who run the greeting card companies are embracing it, than it MUST be widespread. (The other most popular icon on contemporary greeting cards? Napoleon Dynamite. That movie came out in 2004!)

Ah well, mainstream products getting on board with an entire nation scorning their current president is nothing new. I liken our countries disaffection for Bush with how the nation must’ve felt about Nixon, when he was in office. And you can still find traces of Nixon-bashing in videos of shows from the time. This is just more of the same.

In convenient greeting card form.

Nothing says, “Sorry I pushed you down the stairs, baby” like a Greeting Card.

Someone somewhere* once said, “In the Golden Age of Civilization, there will be a greeting card to express literally any and every possible sentiment that you can think of!" We’ve taken one step closer to that Age of Enlightenment with the appearance of the racks of the “Sorry we’re fighting” cards.

You know that you’re delving into subtle gradations of human sentiment when you see the title cards advertising these little jems. Instead of "I'm sorry" or "Making Up", they say, and I am quoting here, “Sorry I’ve been difficult lately” and “Let’s find the love that we used to have again” and “ I’m sorry we’ve been fighting. I love you and need you.” Wow! You can really smell the fresh bloodstains of co-dependance and regret dripping down the sides of the cards, can’t you?

Each card in the “Let this card soothe the emotional damage that I’ve done” series is covered, surface to surface in the most emotionally gentle poetry about “feelings” and “communication” and “remembrances of happier times when we used to talk and love and listen and feeeeeeeeeeel.” Lord A Mighty. The sentiments of shame are buried under so much floral script that you have almost have a hard time peeling back the words to get to the meaning of the card (which is “Sorry. I fucked up.”) I guess some people have a hard time actually saying out loud, “Sorry. I fucked up.” Especially to the person who threw your favorite coffee mug at your head, intending to do you serious bodily damage. And for those special few, these cards exist.

Here’s the thing, though, if I were a girl and I was so pissed off at you that you actually KNEW to go buy a “Sorry. I fucked up” card, the damage is so far done at that point, that a card is only going to compound the issue. I’ll be thinking, “Why didn’t you say any of this shit in person, you miserable, shitheel?!?” See what I mean? NO card is going to erase one of those bloody, horrible, two day fights.

I DID find it hilarious that each one of the “Sorry. I fucked up” cards were relatively male in tone and design. Lots of pictures of horses grazing and soft earth tones. (Apparently, we men do A LOT of apologizing for stuff) Also, each card was gate-folded, so that there was a convenient place for you to include a $20 bill for the recipient. Just like the cards that grandma used to send you!

I found a few cards to be missing from the rack, though. The cards with more specific apologies inside that we fellas might have practical use for. I include them here as a resource for any members of the Greeting Card production community to use, free of charge. I do this not for myself, but for all men.

Someone somewhere please make these cards…

“I’ve tried and I can’t figure out why you’re mad at me. Can I use a lifeline and eliminate two of the possibilities? Or ask the studio audience? C’mon, give me a clue here!”

“Look, I was drunk and that seemed like a funny thing to say at the time. Can you please pass this apology card around to your co-workers for me? Black people really do like me!”

“I swear that I don’t secretly think that your unmotivated body issues are accurate in any way. I love your ass. It gives me huge, raging boners! It’s nowhere near as big as you think that it is. And everything that I say, isn’t a subtle hint that I don’t like it. Also, your boobs are huge and firm and beautiful and when I’m not busy respecting your keen intellect and charming personality, I want to play with them.”

“I don’t do nearly as many chores around the house as you do. And I don’t comment aloud nearly enough, when I’ve noticed that you’ve done them. Because sometimes I’m selfish. Or watching tv. Same thing. Sorry about that. My bad!”

"For all the times that you cleaned out the cat litter box, even though it was my turn and I just pretended that it wasn't, I am sorry and I love you. So does the cat!"

“You are not turning into your mother. Yes, she’s as horrible as you think that she is. And you’re nowhere near as bad as she is. One fight or one freak out about how clean the kitchen is, does not equate your mothers lifelong crusade to destroy your self-esteem and drive your father to hang himself in the garage, using only compliments. Seriously, you’re nothing like that horrible, mean old woman.”

“I’m just tired and lazy and out of shape. That’s why the erections are infrequent and not the colossal, awe-inspiring Monuments to Manliness that we used to enjoy in college. Also, I play with myself too much. I’ll cut down on that and delete some porn off of my secret file on the computer and things will pick up in the bedroom. I promise.”

*I was the Someone Somewhere mentioned in the above paragraph. But it sure sounds like something wise that someone much cooler than me, would've said, doesn't it?